DDS Ranko Kanzaki 2nd Ver.

21 minutes ago, Gabriel said:

Any rumblings about whether VolksUSA is going to run a lottery or not and when?

I've been wondering this myself. I went back and checked their emails for Rem/Ram and Sailor Mars/Mercury. For those emails, the one I have for Rem and Ram is dated just one day before the lottery started, and for the Sailor Moon dolls, it was one week ahead. So I guess they don't talk about these things very far in advance at least via email. As I don't do facebook and it seems like that's where Volks USA makes announcements, perhaps they do it there earlier.

I'm going to try to get her in the Volks Japan clickwar, but I want to know about the USA lottery so I can use that as a fallback if the clickwar doesn't work out for me.

21 minutes ago, Gabriel said:

I've actually been looking at pictures of Ranko and thinking I don't like her faceup's eyebrows.

I can understand that; they're unusual though they do match the character art. I find that I like really like her with her own wig, but think she looks quite odd with most other other wig styles that I've seen in peoples' pictures. But I don't plan to have her be anything but herself so won't be using any other wigs anyway.

I do find that eyebrows turn me off of various DDs as I guess I only like certain styles and shapes.

Here's a random Ranko with another wig I dug up quickly on twitter. She's still cute, but I think loses her identity and those eyebrows do stand out:

It may just be that her default wig largely covers them so they don't stand out much.

Edited January 6, 2020 by cfx

Per the Volks USA Facebook, they will have an announcement about the US release of the Dolpa 42 items soon. 

11 hours ago, BeyondTime said:

Per the Volks USA Facebook, they will have an announcement about the US release of the Dolpa 42 items soon. 

Glad to hear that. Hopefully their event will be pretty soon.

I found a picture of Ranko in the iDOLM@STER My First Star~Cool outfit:

A bit OT since not DD-related, but I needed to post this anyway:

Also if I could find an outfit like that one for her, it looks like everything that touches her is white.

Ranko and Arle will be available from 10 AM (JST) on 19 January instead. 

 

Which... sucks (for me). Now I'll have to be awake at 2 AM to join the clickwar. Maybe I won't mess up my sleep schedule too much if I take a nap beforehand? 
I can see the merit though; now it'll (hopefully? Probably?) be easier for people who are only interested in the clothes. 

Edited January 10, 2020 by Guest

2 hours ago, childepaladin said:

I can see the merit though; now it'll (hopefully? Probably?) be easier for people who are only interested in the clothes.

Clothing already started three hours earlier before the change. If the website isn't a disaster performance-wise, the mass of people buying clothing should've been died down by the time Arle and Ranko started even then. If they really wanted to make things easier for customers and website traffic, they wouldn't start Ranko and Arle at the same time.

This seems more likely to be a change for their benefit, they can deal with some of the clothing orders first, or something.

I don't mind either way. Here in the US the timing is better; it's not as late at night as it would've been. I tend to suck at remembering when these things start no matter what which is my main concern. I've missed out before.

Nice picture of Ranko I found; I believe this is her original release though:

 

I sorta want her, but I have Takane and gonna just get arle so I can finally have my mdd cherry popped >_>'

I won Ranko & Arle 😍 soon! 😋

Edited January 13, 2020 by Meow

On the Volks USA FB page, they just announced that Arle and Ranko will have their own link up soon, and it looks like it'll be a lottery from Feb 1-10th.

Yayyy, no clickwar! Ranko looks so cute, I hope I can win her. I wonder how many Best selection dolls are left? If this is MDD/DDS...

Edited January 17, 2020 by sweets

1 hour ago, sweets said:

I wonder how many Best selection dolls are left? If this is MDD/DDS...

With these and Miku Reboot they have rereleased one doll from each of the voting categories but who knows if they may do more, whether they use the Best moniker or not.

They still have various SD categories they haven't released anything from yet too.

Edited January 17, 2020 by cfx

I'm missing the good old times with the lotteries on the int. website. 😭 

2 hours ago, cfx said:

With these and Miku Reboot they have rereleased one doll from each of the voting categories but who knows if they may do more, whether they use the Best moniker or not.

They still have various SD categories they haven't released anything from yet too.

Oh, miku was one? Somehow that's disappointing lol. She seems really plentiful. Hopefully they'll rerelease more sought after dolls then. 

1 hour ago, sweets said:

Oh, miku was one? Somehow that's disappointing lol.

That was my exact reaction when she was announced.

You can see the logo on her page here: https://www.volks.co.jp/miku/en/dd_miku_reboot/

When Volks did the Best rereleases for the 15th Anniversary, they just did one for each of the categories and labeled as a Best rerelease, but over the next couple of years there were some other rereleases like Rin Shibuya, Rin Tohsaka v2, and Alisa that also may have been a result of the voting data and I hope they do that again.

Edited January 18, 2020 by cfx

Haha. Hopefully we'll see more idolmaster rereleases. Imo they have some of the cutest sculpts! I like them a lot and want a couple even tho I haven't watched the anime lol. Yaya would also be nice.

36 minutes ago, sweets said:

Haha. Hopefully we'll see more idolmaster rereleases. Imo they have some of the cutest sculpts! I like them a lot and want a couple even tho I haven't watched the anime lol.

I agree, some of the best sculpts. I actually watched the anime because of the dolls. The two shows (The Idolmaster and Idolmaster: Cinderella Girls) are fairly different but I liked them both. I just wish they were available to buy.

38 minutes ago, sweets said:

Yaya would also be nice.

Yeah, she's another cutie that's pretty expensive aftermarket I'd love to see.

If i win ranko, i will definitely try to watch the cinderella girls one even though I want her to be my own character. I really have no clue what it's about, but I had a buddy who was obsessed with Rin Shibuya, who I honestly thought was a Love Live character until I got into DDs. Can't keep track of these idol animes!

23 minutes ago, sweets said:

If i win ranko, i will definitely try to watch the cinderella girls one even though I want her to be my own character. I really have no clue what it's about,

I would start with the original iDOLM@STER. Cinderella Girls has a much larger cast and it's a bit harder to keep track of all the characters.

 

25 minutes ago, sweets said:

but I had a buddy who was obsessed with Rin Shibuya

Obsession with Shiburin is a perfectly normal thing. 😏

10 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

I would start with the original iDOLM@STER. Cinderella Girls has a much larger cast and it's a bit harder to keep track of all the characters.

I agree with that; I initially didn't like Cinderella Girls because I felt like the cast was so large it was to the detriment of getting to know the girls on more than a pretty superficial level. As it goes on my mind changed though. The original iDOLM@STER is a more fun show I think.

12 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

Obsession with Shiburin is a perfectly normal thing. 😏

Indeed it is.

43 minutes ago, cfx said:

I agree with that; I initially didn't like Cinderella Girls because I felt like the cast was so large it was to the detriment of getting to know the girls on more than a pretty superficial level. As it goes on my mind changed though. The original iDOLM@STER is a more fun show I think.

I think the main thing is that the original gives you more of an opportunity to learn what iDOLM@STER is about, because it's easier to keep track of who is who as you watch. The individual girls get more time too, so you can connect more with the characters.

Edited January 18, 2020 by BeyondTime

okay, okay. OG Idolmaster will be first on my watch list then. I hope it doesn't instill in me a deep desire to get one of the dolls lol.

and yeah, my friend loooooved Rin. She's an artist and Rin was her muse/fictional GF for a while. I maintain the right to mock her for it, even if watching the show makes me understand said love. >:)

31 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

The individual girls get more timetoo , so you can connect more with the characters.

This was the thing I specifically was noticing. By the time CG was over I didn't feel this was as much an issue, but still somewhat for most of the non core group of girls, such as how even though she had her own episode I felt all I really learned about Kaede was how she valued her fans over more popularity. One thing I did really like in CG is how the producer has a real personality and a lot of character development. In the original show it's patterned more like the games where he is supposed to be you so he wasn't given any particular strong personality characteristics. At least his head wasn't a capital "P".

Took me about 10 minutes to get in but managed to get Ranko!  Now I won't have to rely on the Volks USA lottery.  Good Luck to those going that route.

Congratulations!

It took me ~30 minutes to get in and Ranko was gone by then, so it's USA lottery for me.

Based on timestamps of some posts in the Volks News thread, I think she was already gone 5+ minutes before I got in.

That's garbage sorry to hear that.  This is my second time entering a click war and its always fun spending ~5+ clicking the refresh button.